Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The Balkan trip is over. Right now I am on the way back to the US. More precisely, at Budapest Airport. I must say, I was pissed off by the Macedonian official at Skopje Airport, who kept asking unnecessary questions about my trip to the US, asked me for additional ID, and was only convinced that he should let me go after I showed him my university ID. I guess he was just doing what Macedonian officials like to do: make Kosovars feel uneasy. You could say he was just doing his job, but do you know why I don't think so? Because of the way they throw your documents back at you, without even looking at you, or saying anything. What can I say, he did his Slavic duty!

The next annoyance was at Budapest Airport, when the inexperienced Hungarian official was puzzled by the fact that my visa is not on my passport, but stapled on a seperate sheet of paper. He had to ask for his colleague's help about this curiousity, and to double check if it is the same person on the two pictures. All this and the computer searches he did, took longer than it should. I know one thing, I need to change the picture on my passport. The other thing I need to do is make Kosova independent, so we can have proper passports, proper visas on our passports, an embassy where we can bitch if we are harrassed and little things like this.

ah macedonian border officials! I had to "tip" one once 50$ because I didn't declare my $ when entering and they had some law against taking foreign currency out. visa and passport makes me feel special being unmikistani.